“At home.”

“How so?  All the men say you were not in.”

“Just as you please, your honour.”

“My pleasure has nothing to do with the matter.  Tell me where you were that night.”

“At home.”

“Very well.  Policeman, bring him to the police-station.”

The reason why Proshka did not say where he had been that night was that he had spent it with his sweetheart, Parasha, and had promised not to give her away.  He kept his word.  No proofs were discovered against him, and he was soon discharged.  But Peter Nikolaevich was convinced that Prokofy had been at the bottom of the whole affair, and began to hate him.  One day Proshka bought as usual at the merchant’s two measures of oats.  One and a half he gave to the horses, and half a measure he gave back to the merchant; the money for it he spent in drink.  Peter Nikolaevich found it out, and charged Prokofy with cheating.  The judge sentenced the man to three months’ imprisonment.

Prokofy had a rather proud nature, and thought himself superior to others.  Prison was a great humiliation for him.  He came out of it very depressed; there was nothing more to be proud of in life.  And more than that, he felt extremely bitter, not only against Peter Nikolaevich, but against the whole world.

On the whole, as all the people around him noticed, Prokofy became another man after his imprisonment, both careless and lazy; he took to drink, and he was soon caught stealing clothes at some woman’s house, and found himself again in prison.

All that Peter Nikolaevich discovered about his grey horses was the hide of one of them, Beauty, which had been found somewhere on the estate.  The fact that the thieves had got off scot-free irritated Peter Nikolaevich still more.  He was unable now to speak of the peasants or to look at them without anger.  And whenever he could he tried to oppress them.

XII

After having got rid of the coupon, Eugene Mihailovich forgot all about it; but his wife, Maria Vassilievna, could not forgive herself for having been taken in, nor yet her husband for his cruel words.  And most of all she was furious against the two boys who had so skilfully cheated her.  From the day she had accepted the forged coupon as payment, she looked closely at all the schoolboys who came in her way in the streets.  One day she met Mahin, but did not recognise him, for on seeing her he made a face which quite changed his features.  But when, a fortnight after the incident with the coupon, she met Mitia Smokovnikov face to face, she knew him at once.

She let him pass her, then turned back and followed him, and arriving at his house she made inquiries as to whose son he was.  The next day she went to the school and met the divinity instructor, the priest Michael Vedensky, in the hall.  He asked her what she wanted.  She answered that she wished to see the head of the school.  “He is not quite well,” said the priest.  “Can I be of any use to you, or give him your message?”